


Perfunctory - Kate lives

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1081]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen, Kate Lives, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 06:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15212771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: When Ari fires the second bullet that killed Kate in canon, Tony reacts without thought to protect Gibbs, incidentally saving Kate in the process.





	Perfunctory - Kate lives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TT_Angst_Queen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TT_Angst_Queen/gifts).



> Another dictionary.com word of the day drabble. This time from 04/16/2002 for the word [perfunctory](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/2002/04/16/perfunctory).
> 
> perfunctory  
> Done merely to carry out a duty; performed mechanically or routinely.  
> Lacking interest, care, or enthusiasm; indifferent.
> 
> This was requested by Tardis_Type40 as part of my 2017 prompt challenge. You can prompt me in 2018 [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2018/profile) by clicking the sign up link.
> 
> **Prompt:**
> 
> What if Tony had taken the bullet meant for Kate? (Two versions, 1.He lives 2.he dies(keep in mind the hight difference would make Tony's death a slower one))
> 
> **End Prompt**
> 
> I've marked this as gen/Tibbs because you can read it as gen or as Tibbs. The prompter requested Tibbs and it's there I think, but it's not hugely obvious. *shrugs*

# 

Perfunctory - Kate Lives

Gibbs turned over Kate’s body, afraid for the worst given she’d taken the bullet meant for him. Fortunately, it had hit her bulletproof vest and she was just stunned. Tony helped Kate stand as they joked about whether she’d be doing pilates tomorrow or not. 

Tony heard the bullet before he saw it and his body automatically moved to protect Gibbs, incidentally knocking Kate out of the way of the bullet aimed for her head in his effort to reach Gibbs and make sure Gibbs was safe. The bullet impacted in Tony’s shoulder instead, knocking him down to the ground. Gibbs pulled Kate down and behind cover before Ari could shoot at her again. 

Gibbs aimed his gun towards the location where the shot came from. It was too far away for him to have a good shot at the sniper, but he wasn’t about to let Ari kill anyone else no matter what he had to do. He just hoped that Tony would be safe on the ground as Gibbs couldn’t help Tony to cover without giving Ari a shot at him too.

Ari cursed from his nest as he realized he missed his target and had not delivered a fatal shot on top of that. Ziva was going to kill him, but he knew there was no point in a second shot. They would be prepared now and he would have no targets.

Ari packed up his sniper gear and vanished without a trace. Gibbs called it in and they had a team searching his nest in less than a minute, but he was already gone. Kate and Gibbs moved to Tony and helped him stand up after his own winding from a bullet impacting with his bulletproof vest. 

Ziva snarled from a safe distance away as she watched the NCIS agents stand up and walk away. Now, there was no spot on the NCIS team for her. No matter. 

She would find her own way onto the team. She heard Gibbs whispered, “Ari” as he watched the sniper nest and could tell that Gibbs was all too ready to blame everything on her brother. An idea formed in her mind at that thought. 

She could lean on her friendship with Jenny Shepard to get on Gibbs’ team under the pretense of helping Gibbs find the rogue Mossad agent, Ari. Their father had regularly pitted them against each other and in the process the standard sibling even half sibling love between them had suffered. If she had to sacrifice Ari for her goals, it wouldn’t bother her in the slightest and she knew Ari felt the same way about her.

Gibbs growled. He couldn’t believe Ari had escaped. It had been a close call, but the team had made it back to NCIS unscathed despite both Tony and Kate taking a bullet to their vests.

They’d be bruised tomorrow, but for today they were just happy to survive. Well Tony, Kate, and McGee were happy to survive. Gibbs, Gibbs was pissed.

Even with no proof, he knew that Ari was responsible. He wouldn’t stop digging until Ari was behind bars and no longer a threat to his team. None of them expected what happened when they walked in to NCIS headquarters the next day. 

They found an Israeli woman with an attitude leaning against Kate’s desk. 

“Who are you?” DiNozzo practically interrogated the new female. 

“Ziva David, your new teammate.”

“The hell you are!” Gibbs stormed up the stairs content to take his anger at Ari out on Jenny for saddling them with this newbie. They hadn’t even lost a team member. Why did they need another person?

McGee, Tony, and Kate exchanged glances before crossing their arms and glaring at the intruder unhappily. When Gibbs stormed down even more upset than he was when he went up there, they knew they were getting a fifth member on the team. Tony eyed the intruder with suspicion. 

What the hell did this Ziva David have over Jenny or NCIS? Why was she being allowed on the team? He didn’t trust this new woman and neither did Gibbs apparently as Gibbs quickly ordered Tony to follow her when she left unexpectedly to meet with a contact. 

Kate too was suspicious about the woman and hit up her secret service contacts for any information they had on the woman. McGee recognized the fighting skills the new woman had and that he could use them. He tried to make friends with Ziva in hopes of learning some of her fighting moves. 

Kate only saw a woman trying to take her spot on the team especially with the heavy handed flirting that this imposter was throwing around. It annoyed Kate beyond measure. Normally, Tony would have tried to lighten it up with a joke himself, but something was very not right, right now. 

He couldn’t say for sure that Ziva knew Ari, but he couldn’t deny that they had both been in the same location within a short time frame of each other. Without proof, though, he could do nothing more than continue to follow her. Gibbs had Kate and Tony switch off, so that one of them was always on Ziva’s tail. 

Meanwhile, Gibbs co-opted McGee and Abby to help him search for Ari especially when Ducky remembered that the man probably went to the same British Medical school that Ducky had. Before their facial recognition could come through and identify the terrorist, they ended up involved in a case where supposedly Ari was working as a double agent with them. 

That case quickly went belly up through no fault of their own and Gibbs could only shake his head at Fornell and everyone else for believing Ari to be on their side. He had tried to warn them. Ari was only on his own side, of that Gibbs was quite sure by now. 

He had even managed to convince Ari’s half sister, Ziva David that Ari was only operating for himself. She didn’t truly believe him, but she agreed to listen in on the confrontation between Gibbs and Ari. Gibbs hadn’t canceled the order for Ziva to be watched at all times. 

Not knowing what Gibbs had planned for Ziva when Ari moved to kill Gibbs, Kate quickly raised her weapon and fired a shot in prejudice for her treatment under Ari and to protect Gibbs, hitting Ari in the forehead with her shot. He fell to the ground dead. 

At the same time, Ziva had fired her own perfunctory shot. She hadn’t wanted to kill her brother, but she had orders from her father to do so and knew Gibbs expected it of her, so once again her duty won out and she killed her half-brother. Her shot wasn’t the kill shot though. 

Both shots went through Ari’s head and either could have been fatal, but Kate’s passion made her just that split second faster that hers hit first. Ziva immediately turned on Kate angrily.

“How dare you follow me! That was my shot.” Ziva had known that she was being followed for a long time and thought that in Gibbs’ house was the perfect chance to get chicken on Kate’s face and maybe have a permanent spot for herself on Gibbs’ team.

“Ziva.” Gibbs growled in warning. “She was following you on my orders.”

“And have I passed your test, Gibbs?” Ziva asked, turning to Gibbs and leveling a piercing gaze at him.

Kate just folded her arms and glared at Ziva. The two women had definitely not hit it off. There was no way that Gibbs could keep both on his team without their teamwork suffering or them warming up to each other. 

With not just Tony, but also Kate not warming up to Ziva, Gibbs treaded lightly with Ziva. “We’ll see. Kate, call it a day.”

“But.”

“That’s an order, Agent Todd.”

Kate nodded and returned to NCIS headquarters to file her after action report. What she didn’t know was that Tony had already collected evidence of Eli’s orders to kill Ari. While the three of them had been at Gibbs’, Tony had been searching for evidence that all was not as it seemed with Ziva. He’d found the orders shoved in between the baseboard and the wall at Ziva’s apartment.

He’d sent Gibbs a text as soon as he found them. He knew Gibbs would deal with them and Ziva appropriately. He’d logged the orders in to evidence for safe keeping. 

After Kate left, Gibbs confronted Ziva. “Do you take me to be an idiot?”

“No.”

“Don’t play this game. We both know you’re working for another master. I will press charges if you don’t leave my team peacefully.”

Ziva’s mouth dropped open in shock. She couldn’t believe Gibbs was treating her this way after she’d just saved his life. “What will Jenny have to say about this?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. This is above her paygrade now.” Gibbs growled.

He’d be calling SecNav Davenport with the information Tony had found and confronting Jenny about what the hell she thought she was doing forcing him to take on a foreign spy. Gibbs knew that this would likely result in an investigation of what else Jenny had been doing, but it had to be done. The screaming match between him and Jenny followed by the one between her and Ziva would be gossiped about for many years to come. 

In the meantime, he would do his best to keep his real team, Kate, McGee, and Tony alive and prevent them from becoming deaths on his conscience or pawns used against him as best as he could.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh no, I only have the next 2 stories after this one written. I need to get my butt in gear and finish the 2 stories after that, so that I have a bunch written. Wish me luck!
> 
> Also, if I've been too slow fulfilling your prompts there is maybe a sliver of hope. Tardis_Type40 has her own prompts up. She offers more than NCIS fandoms, so if you want a fandom that I'm not delivering maybe she'll suit your needs. Her prompts are [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TT40PromptMeme/profile). She hasn't been writing as many NCIS works recently, so I have no idea how responsive she'll be to completing your prompts, but feel free to prompt her and see if she can get your prompt done before me. Don't worry I'll still be doing all of my current prompts and my prompts are still open, see below information, but she's a friend and I encourage you to prompt her too.
> 
> I've started a new [poll](https://cutsycat.livejournal.com/55450.html) regarding my series and which ones people most want to see continued in place of the Rapprochement series which I have brought to an end for now... 
> 
> Note: The Bishop Entanglement, Crazy Cat Tale, and Pregnant FBI Agent series will be continued no matter what, so you don't need to vote for those. For those who don't have livejournals just leave a comment with your responses. Thanks!
> 
> Also, I'm looking for some writing buddies. Full details are [here](https://cutsycat.livejournal.com/53610.html). It is friends locked, so you'll have to add me as a friend on lj before you can read it.
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them. 
> 
> My 2018 Prompt collection is now open [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2018/profile). Just click the sign up link. ;)
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes.
> 
> Feel free to leave feedback here if you think something could be improved(either in the prompt process or the story itself).


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